Originally Posted by bruhaha

They do get out onto the line, I know of three that have basically come from an aviation college, i.e. Embry-Riddle, taught ground school at Spirit for 2 years, and now are FO's at Spirit, and basically got to skip the regional rat race, are really young, and once they get their time in here, if they desire, can either stay here as a Captain at spirit for the rest of their 40+ year career or bail to another airline like Delta or go overseas with Airbus PIC time and still have 30+ years left to go in their aviation career.

Just don't believe the 2.5 year upgrade that they are using to get folks into the ground school instructor pipeline in their advertising flyers. Yes it is a 2.5 year upgrade for the pilots that got hired in 2012, but for a ground school instructor that got hired in 2012 - he didn't get to get in line for the captain upgrade until 2014.

The only thing you can depend on is that you will be a Spirit FO in 2 years.

The ground instructors I've run into are all top notch, very knowlegeable and book-smart and can make good looking powerpoint slides, but when you ask them about how things work on the line - they can't help you and have to redirect and ask for help from the line pilots or check airmen that are around the campus running the FTDs.